Harvest Festivals

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It's that time of year again, or so I was reminded when I went into the garden to be confronted by an enormous combine harvester bearing down towards me. Choking on the dust from the grain and sneezing incessantly, I dashed inside to escape.

The next day the farmer returned and everything was neatly baled before being safely gathered in, two days later.

Life in the vegetable patch isn't quite as mechanical, but I have been digging over the sunken beds that are empty, adding compost and tucking them up for the winter with a layer of weed suppressing fabric. I've also been doing a bit of gathering in on my own account, collecting the last of the beans, courgettes, peppers and cucumbers, although the tomatoes seem keen to go on and on for the time being.

Yesterday found me harvesting lavender or to be precise its dried out flowers, after spotting a recommendation by way of variation to my porridge bathing. Briefly, I mixed oats and lavender, added essential lavender oil and then stuffed the mixture into offcuts from a pair of tights (I had no muslin). Now I have to leave them in a dark place for a few months (where better than the wardrobe and hopefully the lavender will discourage passing moths) after which they are ready to be thrown into the bath. Well I have to admit, I may not have a combine harvester to ride but I surely must have more fun in the kitchen with my garden produce than the farmer does with his straw bales.

The entertainment continued today when I picked beetroot and, using both it and some of the onions that have been hanging from the rafters to dry, made a large pan of relish for bottling.  The colour looks good and the smell is amazing, as indeed was the sneaky spoonful that I sampled. I even remembered to wear gloves to avoid going round with purple hands for the next week. You see the older we get, the wiser we become.

A glut and gluttony obviously lead on from one another. If it continues this way, I'll be needing a larger size in clothes. All of which reminds me of a friend explaining that the correct description for big knickers is actually harvest festivals: where all is safely gathered in, of course. 



Comments

Treaders said…
Ha ha, I'd never heard that expression for big knickers! A new one for me!
20 September 2020 at 14:20
Caree Risover said…
Meanwhile I can’t help but connect the expression to another line from the hymn in which those words feature: “Free from sorrow, free from sin.”
1 October 2020 at 09:32
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